


a summer with a thousand july's

by BabadookBabe



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Apocalypse, Arwen/Tauriel - Freeform, Black Character(s), Delusions, Gen, Memories, Modern AU, Nonbinary Character, One Shot, POV Arwen Undómiel, Post-Apocalypse, Sad Ending, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Feelings, angsty as fuck, arwen is dying, flash backs, heat visions, supposed unrequited feelings, tauriel is most likely dead, tauriel is nonbinary, tauriel uses they/them pronouns, the world is dying, they/them pronouns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 03:03:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15133679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabadookBabe/pseuds/BabadookBabe
Summary: Taking in a breath, her voice barely more than a hoarse whisper, she asks the sky “Are you there? I’ve missed you.”





	a summer with a thousand july's

She is remembering how to breathe, the scent of parched earth and heat filling her nose. Jaw clenched, shoulders always tense-she is remembering how to breathe it all out at once. _So close to the death of the world,_ she thinks, _and only now am I learning how_.

_How ironic._

Everything is growing hotter, the sun now scorching, and what used to be land is now dust. The birds no longer sing. The wind barely blows, and all sounds are thin in the dry air. It was like a never ending summer with a thousand July’s.

  _It’s funny how you don’t notice a presence until it’s gone_.

  _You really feel it then_ , she muses _, the absence clawing at you, an itch you can’t scratch no matter how hard your nails drag across your skin._ Water is scarce now, and her ragged laugh fills the silence at the futility of trying to survive in a world that has given up (but not her).

_What do you do when time is short and you are all alone? Well it should be obvious. You think. You think long and hard, despite the dehydration that has begun to gnaw at you._ She begins to see the flowers that aren’t there, their cloying scent gone from the breeze that is no longer a relief.

She begins to see them.

_Long red hair, braided and rich, settling against russet skin that was somehow radiant in any light. No one thinks twice about hazel eyes but when the sun hit theirs, by god was that a sight to see. Oh, but when they looked at you? Nothing compared to basking in the glow of that._

A stream, shallow and shrinking, warm-but there. Stepping in she sighed, closing her eyes. Losing count of the days since seeing almost any signs of life, she’d begun to content herself with heat tinged visions.

_“I was looking for you, you know,” the being that could sing like a songbird and who smelled of the woods said, smiling. Laughing, they took my hands in their own, my whole world shattering into a million points of light. My heart shattered into a million pieces all at the same moment, my happiness at their attention and my realization that it would never mean the same to them as it did to me being synonymous._

Sitting down in the stream, she let the water run around her calves, her eyes still closed. If she concentrated very very hard, she could still smell the woodsy perfume, could still hear that voice.

_Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it also makes it all fade like day into dusk._

_“I’m waiting,” they whispered. And they were, waiting at the edge of this world, where I longed to go and beyond._

Taking in a breath, her voice barely more than a hoarse whisper, she asks the sky “Are you there? I’ve missed you.”

Nothing but the soft sound of water over earth responded. Somewhere, a bird has begun to sing.

**Author's Note:**

> An original piece I wrote that I turned into Arwen/Tauriel angst. I have writer's block and all my one-shots/full stories keep going unfinished so here is this for now.


End file.
